92 TRAVELS IN 
drove in the ancient limits of the ocean, possessed the minds 
of those who first formed the settlement. A temperate cli- 
mate, a sufficiently fertile soil, a mild and peaceable race of 
natives, were advantages that few infant colonies have pos- 
sessed. But although these advantages still exist to a certain 
degree, yet, such is the prevalence of custom, that the present 
inhabitants appear to be equally blind to them as their pre- 
decessors were. To encourage the native Hottentots in use- 
ful labor, by giving them an interest in the produce of that 
labor ; to make them experience the comforts of civilized 
life, and to feel they have a place and a value in society, 
which their miserable polic}'^ has hitherto denied to them, 
would be the sure means of diminishing, and, in time, of en- 
tirely removing the necessity of slavery. Few negroes, in 
fact, were imported during the seven years which the English 
kept possession of the colony ; and those few were intro- 
duced in captured ships, or by the roguery of two or three 
English slave merchants, or by special permission. The ex- 
travagance of the price which the farmer, by the increased 
demand and value of his produce, could afford to give, was 
too strong a temptation for thfe dealer in human flesh to re- 
sist. From one hundred to four hundred pounds sterling was 
the price of a choice slave in Cape Town ; and it was by no 
means unusual to find from twenty to thirtj', of different 
descriptions, in one house. Some of these, indeed, were ar- 
tificers, and hired out at certain rates for the day, week, or 
month. The most active and docile, but at the same time 
the most dangerous, slaves, are the Malays. They are faith- 
ful, honest, and tolerably industrious ; but so impatient of 
